


Holy Spring

by bogfable



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Blood, Body Horror, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Drowning, Experimental Style, Fae & Fairies, Head Injury, Mermaid Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe), Mermaids, Mythology References, Non-Consensual Kissing, Scottish Highlands, gaelic, like strange body horror gore, made up words also, switching POVs, tags and warnings might be edited...death-wise, there is gore later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-21 06:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16571345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogfable/pseuds/bogfable
Summary: Lapis was born in her ceasg mother's loch and inherited her watery powers and slippery, blue-grey skin. Now, she is bound to an abbey, tucked within a glen, unable to return to the loch. Bitter and alone, she has found ways to take out her emotions on the sky and the humans that find themselves lost and cold, seeking shelter in her abbey.[As a Scottish person I wanted to finally write something using my country's mythology and folklore. If there are Gaelic/Scottish words in chapters I'll try to put glossaries in the notes.]





	1. Lapis : Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:
> 
> Glen: a valley  
> Burn: a stream  
> Loch: a lake  
> Blaeberry: bilberry  
> Ceasg: a type of fresh-water mermaid from Scottish folklore

The spring ran no longer holy. It’s bubbling waters no longer healed.

Inside the moss-caped abbey the spring gathered within a well. It seeped into the cracks, crumbling the great arches and tumbling great stones earthward to be swallowed by the ever-spreading heather. Moss dripped, carving pathways in the stone and colourful patchworks of lichen. Each wall weeped miniature waterfalls. 

The moss, the lichen, the rain and the heather were determined to engulf the holy structure. To collapse it inward. To crack it’s monstrous ribs. And to take back the mountainside. 

Or so it seemed.

 

☾

 

 

At the mouth of the well crouched a fae-girl, whose mother had named her Lapis. She leant over the black water, dancing her fingertips in the icy pool. She swirled it fast. Faster. And then looked up, amusement tugging up the corners of her mouth. Through a hole in the roof the sky rumbled, sagging and pregnant with lochfuls of rain. 

Lapis took her hand from the pool and traced a loop of water on the stone slab at her knees. A sigil. One to bring floods gushing across bothy doorsteps. She rewetted her finger again and again, until the sigil was complete. 

It did not dry for a long while. The air was already damp, cold and waterlogged as early-year months always are. Upon the sigil soaking in Lapis stood, the first pats of rain sounding upon the path outside. Lapis hopped from uneven slab to uneven slab as she made her way to the open doorway. She watched blotches of dark wetness spread as rain pitter-pattered at her feet. Patterings soon became a steady downpour. Which soon became torrents, hurtling over the little waterfalls and burns on the hillside. The soil was already fit to burst from winter storms and steadily trickling meltwater. The rain had nowhere to go. 

 

Now, Lapis stood a little way from the path. She was ankle deep in acidic, stony mud and watching the the horizon, the mountains, the sky, clouds now painted dark as if it were dusk. 

Toppled gravestones lay scattered throughout the heather, blaeberry shrubs and course grass. They were enclosed, like Lapis, within the stone wall that surrounded the abbey. She had been the one to topple them. She’d pulled the water from the sky, thrust it from her palms. She’d uprooted heavy stones carved with Celtic crosses and serpents and thrown them until she’d collapsed. On clear-sky sunny days they made pleasant seats. On stormy days they were steps to elevate her from the ground and concentrate her magick.

 

Today’s storm begged for concentration, for strength. So Lapis stepped upon a nearby stone, settled, sloped against another. She rubbed her arms but did not shiver. She was cold, yes, but she had been birthed cold. Again she rubbed her arms, feeling her skin, slick with rain and slick with the damp she’d been born into. The damp had seeped inside Lapis when she was born, crying out bubbles in her _ceasg_ mother’s loch, and now it stayed. The remnants of the loch dripped from her blue-black hair like cave moss and cascaded from her eyes, rolling pure-water tears down her dark-grey cheeks until her fish-scale freckles shone clean. 

 

The sky had began to grumble. It roared, loud as the Great North spirits, thunder echoing through the glen. Through Lapis. From deep within burst a song. A lonesome cry. An unearthly hymn that threw itself down the glen and back. All became still. Listening. The heather stood on end. The sky held tight. The rain quietened. The wind died down. The clouds held their breath. 

Lapis’ fingertips lightning-crackled as she howled a slow-sorry ending. She lifted them to the sky and waited. 

All at once everything released. The wind howled it’s response. The rain fell heavy again, roaring parallel to the mountainside. And finally, wonderfully, the sky cracked open, enormous gashes of light forked through the dark like a giant’s million veins. 

Lapis smiled, satisfied by her work. The smallest of knowing smiles. 

She dropped her tired arms back to her sides and turned for the crumbling abbey. 

Wait. 

Something had moved beyond the wall.

Lapis whipped her head from side to side. Eyes darted across the glen, throwing tears with each twist of her neck. She scanned the stunted, bare trees, the lichened boulders, the burn that cut through the bottom of the glen. 

Nothing. 

No. There was movement again. Out in the mist.

Lapis watched, statue-still. The movement scrambled up over a crag a little way above and along from the abbey. It came into view. Human-shaped. Human-moving.

Undoubtably a human. They stumbled along the steep hillside, bundled in sodden wools, a cape billowing around their shoulders, a hood covering their head. 

Lapis ducked behind a still-standing grave and glared, hoping for a rabbit burrow or a tangle of heather to twist the human’s ankle and a boulder to crack their skull on their way down. Like that, they slipped. But only onto their side as they caught themself and staggered back to their feet. They were getting close. Closer. Desperately, they needed cover from the storming sky. Lapis’ abbey was just that.

Thunder sounded, like cannon-fire. Lighting shattered the sky and sewed it back together. Lapis fled into the abbey, where she paused listened to the wind’s whispering before stepping into the deep, dark well. Beneath the water she vanished.


	2. Jasper : Holy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been listening to the scary songs from the Song of The Sea and Secret of Kells soundtracks the whole time i'v been writing this
> 
> also i drew the character designs for this:  
> https://drawjas.tumblr.com/post/179964899974/lapis-jasper-sketches-for-holy-spring-because-i

Jasper didn’t know how far she’d been walking. She’d fumbled, numb-footed, across moors and around bogs, up and down hillsides jagged with crags.

It had been a day —possibly two— that she’d been walking. Since her mare had been frightened by star-lights in the bracken and tore away, leaving Jasper only to clutch her side where she’d landed, gasping for air. 

The rain fell relentless. It clung Jasper’s hair to her stinging-cold face and her clothes to her body, soaked entirely through. Beneath her cape, bruised hands grasped her bag. Tucked inside was an urgent wax-sealed letter, which she’d been ordered —and honoured— to guard with her life. 

Atop a flat, moss-quilted stone Jasper caught her breath and spat out rainwater. Deep breaths still hurt. She gasped at the pain that lingered beneath her ribs, hoping for it to fade into a duller, constant ache. As she stood, Jasper eyed the abbey below through a curtain of dripping, copper hair. It stood lonesome, ghost-looming and shadowy. 

When she decided to continue she kept her eyes towards the structure. As if it might disappear.

 

☾

 

The gate-less opening in the stone wall gaped. Jasper staggered through it, slipping on mossy earth, rain beating her down. Rivers ran quick-frightened over her boots. They rushed down the hill, away from the abbey. From where she stood Jasper stared up at the arches and crumbling, wind-beaten walls. A sorry sight, but a shelter none the less.

Above the door-less entrance was a worn carving: four diamonds, cupped in long-fingered hands. Once there had been writing inscribed beneath the crest. All that remained was a series of indentations. Jasper knelt beneath the crest, prayed, before slowly stepping inside. Her footfalls echoed, loud in the vast, empty hall. When she stopped still, so did the dripping of her clothing. 

_Drip. Drip-drip. Drip._

_Drip._

A different drip sounded. Fuller. Louder. Deeper.

Far, at the end of the hall, in the centre, was a well brimming with bubbling spring-water. Looking over it was the headless statue of a saint, hands outstretched. In one hand she held the remnants of a bird’s nest. In the other, a sapling, glowing pure-green in the darkness. 

Jasper pushed back her cape and stared. 

A holy spring. She’d heard stories of such things countless times. Holy, healing waters were said to flow straight from the ground beneath your feet. 

Slowly, careful, Jasper stepped closer. She knew from the stories the Princess would read that you couldn’t be careless in such powerful places. From several strides away Jasper peered into the black water. The water shushed. In stillness she became aware of her teeth chattering, of her shivering hands and how distant the rain sounded. Under water. 

Jasper sat upon a misplaced pew bench, set her bag by her side and unlaced her boots, peeling off her socks. She undressed to her underclothes and hung everything else to dry.She shivered, holding herself in her arms. So few options were left. 

There would be no one coming for her, not for a long while. Not until the letter’s absence was noticed. And she had only enough food for a day or two more. There were no animals unsheltered outside to hunt. Besides that, if the rain and cold didn’t ease, she would surely freeze to death. 

Jasper picked at her thoughts until they were coming undone. 

She cursed the horse, the weather, the cold, herself.

And then found herself turning back to the well as a series of splashed echoed from within and hummed around the hall. 

 


	3. Lapis : Deep

The human had an angry, dark-sad soul. Lapis felt it. Like her own. She peeked from the pool, glared as the human uncovered their head and began to undress. Long hair, auburn as autumn trees, fell past their waist in a loosely tied braid. A woman?

Not once, in the hundred years Lapis had been trapped, had a woman intruded. Always, it had been lonesome, traveler-men who’d come seeking miracles of eternal youth and blessings. Lapis had drowned them all. She’d eaten the ones less rotten. Cracked their bones between her teeth and sunk their blackened skulls into the spring.

She’d tainted the well. Stained it evil.

The human turned and Lapis slipped below the surface once more, rippling the water just enough to entice a greedy human. She sunk back into the darkness. Blue-grey skin blended with the stone, her hair like moss. There she waited for the rippling shadow of a hand above the surface to grab, to drown. 

Nothing. Nothing. 

Then: A hand. Reaching for the water. 

Lapis looked past the hand, to the human whom it belonged to. She was freckle-faced and furrow-browed, with pale eyes and hair that fell around her face like a fiery halo. 

Her fingers, her hand, slowly broke the surface. 

Lapis reached out to take hold.

The hand jolted, drew away with a splash. The human cried out, backing away from the pool. Lapis flinched and pressed her back flat against the cobblestone.

Had they seen her? 

Lapis careful-listened to the patter of retreating footsteps before slowly floating to the surface. She traced her fingers up onto the slippery rim of the well and gripped, pushing up and out. Water streamed off her fish-slippery body, crashing, breaking the abbey’s unearthly silence. Lapis’ dark eyes rose to the human. They gave a strangled gasp, stepping further back. They held tight to the arm they’d submerged. In the darkness, Lapis saw the branching peat-black upon the human’s forearm. The same peat-bog colour all those bodies had become as they sunk to the bottom of the well. 

“Faerie,” the human spoke. They breathed heavy as a hunting dog.

Lapis smiled small and stepped onto the smooth stone floor, full-naked and dripping. Tears fell faster. They rolled over her chin, her chest, scattering at her feet. 

“Call me what you will,” she replied.

The human backed away, towards the pew where their coverings were hung and dripping.With every step they took back, Lapis took one closer.

“Stay back!” cried the human. Their voice cracked and hissed, a dowsed fire.

Lapis stood before them now, backing them against the pew. She reached out a hand to press against the human’s sternum. Beneath Lapis’ palm, beneath the human’s rain-clinging undershirt and their freckled skin was a petrified, fear-thundering heart, pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer. 

“Tell me your name,” Lapis whispered, drawing her eyes up to meet the human’s.

A shuddered breath escaped the human and they shook their head. Droplets flew from their hair. Unlike the others, all those men before, this one was fighting despite their terror. Fighting not to be entranced. To stay above the surface.

It made Lapis furious. 

She pressed her watery fingertips firmer against the human’s breastbone. 

Outside, the wind howled.

“Tell me.”

Nothing. Not yet.

The human gaped, their name caught in their throat. They stared with wild eyes as syllables rose and formed on her tongue.

“Jasper.”

Lapis smiled her small, knowing smile, dropping her hand from Jasper’s chest.

“Come,” said Lapis.

She wrapped her stormy fingers around Jasper’s wrist and lead her ‘cross the abbey. Wound her between slick patches of moss and the craters patterning the floor. 

“Tread careful,” Lapis whispered.

Together, they moved towards the well and sat upon the rim, perching like corvids above the bottomless pool. Lapis’ fingers grazed Jasper like raindrops, unravelling the braid that hung between her shoulder blades. Slowly, Lapis’ fingers traced her birth-marked cheek. Felt every soft hair, every roughened patch. Slowly, they closed her amber eyes. 

Jasper didn’t say a thing, didn’t reopen her eyes. 

Lapis was ready to devour her. No different from all those who’d come before.

She pressed her lip’s to Jasper’s. Bore deep. Tasted copper. For a short while, Jasper fought, struggling inside her sleeping body as if she were trudging through riverbed mud. Then she went limp, slipping from the well to the floor. Lapis followed her down.

The kiss began again. Deeper. 

Swirls of putrid smoke flowed from Jasper. The plumes sung as they rose. The abbey leaned in to listen. Darkness seeped into Lapis’ mouth. A dark, poisoned green. Vengeful and traumatised. It twisted like disease and regret. So much so that Lapis almost pulled away, body burning. But she grasped hair —white-knuckled— and kept going.


	4. Jasper : Animal

Jasper clawed at the witch, the selkie, the demon. Drew black water from her skin. She fought against her hands, her mouth. She pulled away and gasped for air. The witch tore her back by her hair, teeth like knife-edge locking over her mouth.

She tasted blood, sobs and rot. 

Cold tears streamed from Lapis and down Jasper’s face. They stung. 

Jasper willed her hand to move, crept her fingers across her hip and beneath her underclothes. She found the hilt of her dagger, slipped it from it’s leather sheath. She fought her sleeping body. Fox-quick, she plunged the blade at the witch’s chest. 

It stopped, point only furrowing unbroken fish-skin.

The witch’s fingers coiled around Jasper’s, taking the dagger from her. She dropped it into the well. Gone.

Jasper fought as the witch began to lock their lips. Like an animal, she screamed and clawed, tearing away. She was on her feet. Her eyes wouldn’t open. 

Fingertip’s hooked Jasper’s wrist as she tried to run. They were cold, dripping. And they pulled her back. Spinning her slowly in circles.

“This is no longer your body,” whispered the witch, the abbey and the wind.

Two night-cold hands held Jasper’s. 

“I’ve been here since before your mother birthed you.”

Anger. 

The wind was crying.

“Since before she was birthed.”

Fingertips snow-touched Jasper’s eyelids, opening them.

“Selkie,” Jasper gasped.

The witch met her eyes and said nothing. 

Night had fallen. And in the near pitch-blackness of the abbey all Jasper saw was Lapis’ empty eyes, dripping onto her chest. Those eyes were pools, like the faintly glowing well, they faded into colourless pits. 

They overwhelmed like a candleless night.

Endless.

Swallowing.

Jasper recoiled.


End file.
